


Nights of Wonder

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [95]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Affection, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hair, Hair Braiding, Nighttime, Quiet, Reader-Insert, Slice of Life, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: You spend the evening stretched out in Loki’s lap, and he plays with your hair.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [95]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 9
Kudos: 175





	Nights of Wonder

This.

This was what you dreamed about, sometimes. This was what you had longed for possibly even before you discovered that “longing” was a thing.

It was a quiet night. Sometimes you still had to take a step back and just try not to boggle too hard at the fact that Loki of Asgard was here with you of his own volition. But he was here. The two of you had spent the day more or less working on individual projects, but then came together for dinner and then retired to your sofa in the living room. Your head was in his lap. His fingers were in your hair.

You’d known for a long time that you liked it when people played with your hair. The intimacy of it was soothing. It was calming. Maybe that was doubly or triply true when Loki was the one to touch you. Tonight he’d combed through your hair gently at first, undoing the little snags and knots that had worked themselves into your hair over the course of the evening, but even once everything was smooth and tidy again, he kept touching it. Pleasant chills ran through you with each careful pass through your hair, and by the time one round of goosebumps were beginning to fade, a fresh round was already making you want to shiver. 

Idly, you wondered if doing something like this was as soothing for him as it was for you. You played with his hair every chance you got. You loved to feel the silkiness of it between your fingers and marvel at how glossy and black Loki’s hair was. When you stroked his hair, you often fell into something like a trance as you watched your work. It was so easy to work his hair into sections between your fingers, and just as easy to smooth it all back together again. 

To you, your own hair was nothing special. But that was the case for most of your appearance and personality—you’d lived with it for your whole life, so nothing about yourself felt particularly magical. But when Loki discovered some new part of you, or caught some familiar part of you, you saw how his eyes flashed. You saw how his lips curled and how he reached for you to take you into his arms. He saw something in you that you couldn’t. Although you couldn’t imagine ever giving your own hair a second thought, you also accepted that maybe Loki _could_.

“This feels so good...” It was hardly a brilliant insight, you knew, but you were desperate for him to realize just how much this meant to you. He laughed quietly and moved one hand to smooth it over the skin of your shoulder. Clearly he saw your goosebumps. And, judging by the warmth in his touch and the way it lingered there on your shoulder, it was a pretty good guess that he enjoyed them, too.

“I can tell, darling.” He trailed his fingers down your arm. This was how he always touched you: at once gentle and heated. He was never more than a certain glance away from hauling you into the bedroom but he never made you feel pressured in the slightest. Tonight felt too soft to allow it to take that route. Maybe he knew that. He smoothed his hand back up to your shoulder, and then put it back into your hair. He knew just how to wring the most pleasure out of you right now. He never let his touches become too predictable, because it was the surprise that gave you goosebumps. He would switch, sometimes, from combing through your hair to massaging your scalp, and then to working your hair into braids. He laughed again, but more quietly this time, like it was only for himself. “I love making you go all soft like this. You are like putty in my hands.” 

You had to laugh, too, but of course he was right. You squeezed his knee. “I would follow you to the ends of the Earth, Loki. Maybe even into space or to other worlds. And all I’d ask in return is that you do this to me every once in a while.” You made sure to keep your voice light and humorous, but you knew that you spoke the truth. That was a little nerve-wracking. This man had you absolutely wound around his finger. There was very little that you wouldn’t do for him even without being asked. If something could possibly make him happy, you wanted to do it. And the things that he actually came right out and asked for? Forget about it. You’d fall all over yourself if it meant you could give him what he wanted. Maybe that was pathetic. Maybe it was weak. Those were thoughts that nagged at you, sometimes, when you laid awake at night and listened to the sound of his breathing. Your brain could be cruel: it told you that Loki wanted someone stronger, or maybe he just wanted more of a challenge. Now that he’d gotten you, after all, what could possibly hold his attention for much longer?

But on every night except the very worst ones, you were able to force those thoughts away with just the memory of the way he looked at you. As far gone as you were for him, it wasn’t hard to tell that he felt the same for you. As always, even if you couldn’t understand _why_ he felt that way, but you certainly couldn’t deny the fact that he _did_. He looked at you, touched you, held you like you were the answer to every question he’d ever asked. Sometimes, in the mornings, you would wake up to the feeling of his fingers against you, tracing your skin like he was trying to commit you to memory. At night he whispered things to you that made your cheeks burn, but he did it in the softest voice. He did not hesitate to sing you to sleep after really nasty nightmares. He told you stories. He kissed you like he could devour you whole. For almost the entirety of these few months that he’d been living with you, he’d made you feel like you were lost in a fairy-tale romance.

Maybe there was a lot to be said for falling in love with an alien prince.

He had yet to respond to your words, but the atmosphere in the room made you absolutely certain that he was only relishing them, turning them over and over in his mind, rather than feeling awkward or strange or trying to come up with the proper response. You turned your head a little, to press your cheek more firmly against his knee, and sighed. There was a warmth and a security here in his lap that you’d never thought to expect you’d find in anyone, let alone this specific man.

“If I’d known how simple it was to earn mortals’ undying loyalty, perhaps my first journey here might have been a little different.” 

The surprise of his words made you laugh out loud. Early on, he’d only ever spoken of that time in his life with darkness in his voice. He always sounded ashamed, or maybe horrified. You knew that there was something horrific that lurked beneath the surface, some terrible pain that had driven him to do what he’d done, because that was the most common theme of his nightmares, but he didn’t talk about it much. And it was only very recently that he’d even begun to be able to joke about it. You couldn’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with the way he’d grown, changed. He didn’t call himself a monster nearly as much now as he’d done in the past, and it was far rarer for you to interrupt him in the middle of some sort of grim thought process. He smiled more. 

But maybe you shouldn’t openly encourage him to joke about himself like that. So you huffed and reached between his legs to pinch his inner thigh. He twitched and laughed, and immediately brought his hand down to your side to dig his fingers into your ribs. You’d never been super-ticklish before all this happened, but it was like he just knew how to touch you. You felt safe enough with him that it was okay to be vulnerable. To squirm and squeal while he tortured you and made his best attempt at evil laughter. 

By the time he finished, you’d rolled over onto your back, and gazed up at him with love in your eyes. His hand had gone still and now rested heavily on your stomach. His face looked as soft and open as your heart felt. 

“You are the only mortal whose loyalty means anything to me,” he said after a long time. There was a put-on haughtiness in his voice that told you he was joking, but you could also see through that and understand the deeper weight in his words. He moved his hand from your stomach to your cheek, and brushed his thumb across your lower lip. It didn’t feel sexual, but it made you shiver nonetheless. You let yourself smile and kissed his thumb.

“I love you. A lot.” The words felt so small compared to what you felt—maybe even a little inconsequential—but they were what you had to work with. So you trusted that he would listen to the tone of your voice, the light in your eyes, and use that information to understand what you couldn’t say to him. There weren’t words for what he meant to you, not really. You could wax poetic for days on end and still not quite feel like you were telling the whole truth. With Loki, it seemed like he could just look at you and trust his face to tell you what he needed you to know.

He smiled. Before, you’d often seen wonder in his face when he smiled at you, or bewilderment, like he had a hard time believing that he could feel whatever it was that you made him feel. There was still wonder in his eyes now, you realized, but it felt less confused. “I love _you_ ,” he replied, “more than I could possibly say.”

The two of you remained like that for a while, staring at one another in wonder. 

The night was quiet.


End file.
